Plymouth, or Yarmouth Roads, when the Channel Fleet pay them a visit. The fleet was often wanted for service against the Scotch or the French; and we may be sure that the men of Winchilsea remained true not only to their sovereign but also to their own peculiar notions of dealing with foreigners at all events we find Edward obliged to assure the Burgomasters of Bruges on one occasion that he would give them redress for the injuries inflicted on them by the capture of their ship by certain "malefactores de Winchelse."* During the fourteenth century the town was visited by frequent descents of the French fleet, who on one occasion, viz., in 1359, landed with 3,000 men, sacked and plundered the town, and killed all whom they could lay hands on, without sparing either sex, rank, or age. It is said that on this occasion the inhabitants were at mass, and that the Frenchmen fell upon the unarmed congregation, committing sad havoc, and carrying off whole ship-loads of wine and stores. The slain on this occasion were buried in St. Giles's churchyard, and the lane adjoining it still bears the name of Dead Man's Lane. It is almost needless to add that the English fleet made ample retaliation by descents on the coast of Normandy. On another occasion, seventeen years later, the French, having sacked and burnt the town of Rye, tried their hands once more against Winchilsea; but, thanks to the Abbot of Battle, with but small success. Speaking of this attack, and the defence of the town by the worthy abbot, old Fuller says, in his quaint language, "I behold in this abbot the saver, not onely of Sussex, but of England. For as dogs, who have once gotten an haunt to worry sheep, do not leave it off till they meet with their reward; so, had not these French felt the smart as well as the sweet of the English plunder, our land, and this county especially, had never been free from their incursions." Together with Rye and the other Cinque Ports, from Edward I. down to the reign of Charles II., Winchilsea used regularly to send one and sometimes two bailiffs to Great Yarmouth, to superintend the rights of the port men at the herring fishery. Great quarrels frequently arose, and it is quite certain that the men of Winchilsea were as forward as any of their brethren in their attacks on the men of Yarmouth. On one occasion (25 Henry III.), the Earl of Hereford was ordered to distrain the Barons of Winchilsea for one hundred marks, for injuries done in the fair at Yarmouth. In the reign of Edward I. we read * Rymer's "Foedera," vol. ii., p. 705. of several brawls between the same old foes, and of several acts of blood-stained piracy on the part of the men of Winchilsea, which show that they had not forgotten the lawless ways of their pirate forefathers. Those who wish to pursue the subject further will find a long catalogue of offences done by the men of Winchilsea, sufficiently black to call for the intervention of Calcraft, by referring to Swinden's "History of Yarmouth." The town continued to be a convenient and customary place of embarkation to the Continent, and especially for pilgrims, down to the time of Henry VI. ; but with this reign its prosperity departed. Indeed, from after the commencement of the Wars of the Roses, Winchilsea affords very few materials for history, though Mr. Cooper records the fact that "the marauding propensities of its inhabitants remained unaffected by the gradual decay of their town." In the reign of Henry VII. it is clear that most of the wealthy merchants had abandoned the place, and Rye gradually superseded it as a seat of trade after the erection of Camber Castle, halfway between Winchilsea and that town, by King Henry VIII. in 1538-39. The dissolution of the religious houses, following close on the retirement of the sea and the withdrawal of trade, completed the ruin of the town. For a moment there shone a faint gleam of prosperity on Winchilsea, when Queen Elizabeth paid a visit to the place, in order to satisfy her own royal eyes as to whether it would be possible to deepen the channel of the tidal estuary, and so to save the fleeting commerce of the town, in pursuance of a request of its inhabitants. The maiden queen came, saw, and admired, and pleased with the goodly situation, the ancient buildings, and the civic dignity of the town, she christened it, half in jest and half in earnest, "Little London." But she did nothing further to save it. Since that day the sea has receded full another mile, and the town has dwindled down into a mere rural village. It was not well suited for the manufacturer, even when the weald of Sussex abounded in wood, and all attempts to introduce local manufactures of salt, charcoal, cambrics, lawns, and crape, and also smelting and tan works, have either been In the earliest sea song, preserved in a MS. of the time of Henry VI. in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, and printed by the Percy Society in Mr. Halliwell's Early Naval Ballads, it is evident that Winchilsea held a prominent place among the southern ports: "For when they do take the see, The last entry of a pilgrim to the Continent vid Winchilsea, is the name of William Wey, Canon of Eton, in the year 1456. failures, or at the best have met with only a partial success. We will close this paper with a few lines quoted from C. Knight's "Tourist's Companion :"-" Of all the decayed old towns we have seen along the coast, Winchilsea is the best worth visiting. It owns itself a wreck, and does not try to get rid of its ruins or to put on an appearance of smartness. The wide space which the town originally covered helps now not a little to increase the reverend air it carries as a ruin. You wander about its outskirts among pleasant by-ways, and are startled to come upon some fragment of a chapel or an old religious house, when you thought yourself a long way beyond the limits of the town. And the more important remains are much above the ordinary grade. The church is yet in the centre of the great square, which remains unencroached upon, though only partly surrounded by houses, and serves as a scale by which to judge what must have been the size of the town in the olden days." E. WALFORD. "STUMPY BROWN." THE following incidents, which are perfectly true, and some, though not all, of which may be verified by a reference to the county newspaper of the period, form a singular passage in the history of crime in this country, and cannot be exceeded, we think, in any other. They are derived chiefly from the writer's father, who was personally connected with some of the events recorded in the latter portion of the narrative. I have often heard him relate them as follows, and I have lately verified them on the spot :"About forty years since there lived in the town of Woodbridge in Suffolk, a short, sharpfeatured, wiry little man, who apparently had no occupation, but professed to be a farmlabourer, and really got his living principally by poaching. His proper name was Richard Brown, but the townsfolk of Woodbridge, from some fancy or other, probably on account of his short stature, had changed the Richard into Stumpy, and by that name he was always known. Every one was afraid of Stumpy Brown; he lived in the outskirts of the town on the Martlesome Road, and rarely troubled himself to converse much with his neighbours. When he did it was generally to dispose of a hare, or game of some description, which he nearly always had in stock. His dress, in addition to the knee-breeches of the period, and the usually bright-coloured vest, was a long brown coat of very shabby appearance, and a loose felt hat, which he wore over his forehead, whilst his cold, grey eyes glanced malignantly from under its brim. No one could say any harm of Brown, beyond that he was a surly, ill-conditioned sort of fellow, who shunned his neighbours, and was a known poacher, but yet there were suspicions and rumours abroad about him, which if true, would have brought him to the gallows. Some few years before the time of which I speak three murders had occurred at various intervals in the neighbourhood of Woodbridge, which, considering the nature and size of the town, was a very startling circumstance. Of none of these was the perpetrator known. An officer of a regiment quartered in Woodbridge had been drinking in the Red Lion public-house on the Martlesome Road; he had been seen and recognised here; on the following morning he was found in a ditch near by, his throat cut, and his pockets empty. The captain of a Norwegian trading-vessel, then lying in the port, after he had been missing for ten days, was found in a putrescent condition at the bottom of the river tied up in a sack, without the least clue as to where or by whom he had been murdered. Lastly, a farmer of the name of Aighton, whose property was in the neighbourhood, was known to have gone into Woodbridge on the market-day; he did not return home in the evening, but on the following morning his body was found in a barn by the side of the road behind the town, which it was necessary for him to traverse on his way back. His head had been battered in, apparently by some blunt instrument, and his pockets rifled. More attention appears to have been excited by this murder than in the two former cases. The officer and the captain were strangers in the town, aud with regard to the Norwegian skipper's case, it was the general opinion that some of the vessel's crew were connected with the matter. But in this instance, the victim was no stranger. Farmer Aighton was wellknown and respected in Woodbridge, and had been seen and spoken to by many of his friends on the very day of his assassination. inquest was held as in the two other cases, but no evidence was adduced as to the author The of the crime. Justice appears to have been tardy in those times, at any rate in that quarter of the world; now-a-days it would indeed astonish us should three undiscovered murders spread their dark shadows of suspicion and fear over a single small town within the course of ten years. Although no evidence had been brought before the authorities, tending to inculpate any individual with the murder of Aighton, yet the finger of suspicion, as directed by the good people of Woodbridge, pointed to Stumpy Brown. He was known to have poached on the farmer's grounds, and had been prosecuted by him, and threatened with a second summons. Stumpy was a sourmouthed fellow, and had been heard to say that he would 'do for any person who interfered with what he considered his privileges, and in consequence of this, many farmers and neighbours had refrained from prosecuting Brown, absolutely through fear. Hence it was thought not improbable that Stumpy Brown had murdered Farmer Aighton to prevent him executing his threat of a second summons. Time passed on, and people forgot their suspicions concerning Brown. When I was a boy in the town, about forty years since, Stumpy was regarded by the more sensible folks as a character, a queer sulky old fellow, but no credit was given to the rumours of his being a murderer. I was apprenticed to a doctor in the town, and being fond of fishing or shooting whenever I could steal the time, managed to make the acquaintance of old Brown, who always knew where a hare was, or an old pike. He seemed to take a fancy to me, and many a summer's evening have I spent with him fishing in the river. One evening I remember well walking with him at the back of the town. I never gave the least credence to the reports about Stumpy, and therefore had no hesitation in referring to the murder. "Ah,' said I, pointing to a part of the road, that's where they murdered Aighton, isn't it?' "Brown started a little, and said, "I wish, sir, you wouldn't talk on them sort of things that arn't pleasant. I never heard much about it, never heerd much. I suppose that be the place, as they say so, but my opinion is that that's farther along, not that I should know about it.' “I often heard him muttering to himself, and once found him staring into Kyson Dock in a very intent manner. I startled him by my appearance, and he said, 'That's deep down there, sir, very deep. That would easy drown a man, specially if he wur tied up.' And then he laughed. "I recall these circumstances now, but at the time I thought nothing of them. Towards the end of the year 1830, the small pox broke out in Woodbridge with great violence, as it did in many towns of East Anglia at that period. All the help and care that could be obtained were required for the hundreds of patients who were daily carried off by this terrible disease. My master and I had the greater part of the work to do. A pest-house was established, and the individuals appointed to take charge of it, to receive the patients, and superintend the nursing, were Stumpy Brown and his wife. Old Mrs. Brown, whom I have not yet mentioned, had been wedded to Stumpy for forty years, and I always considered her an honest old woman. When the pest broke out, Stumpy and his wife were getting old folks, the marks of sixty winters' wear being upon them. I, however, found Brown an excellent assistant at the pest house, as he seemed to possess a very great amount of sang-froid in dealing with dead bodies, which is a valuable quality. Although, as we before said, among the educated of the townspeople, no more was thought of the rumour that Brown had murdered Aighton, yet the lower classes still feared him. Mrs. Brown had all along shared the same dislike as her husband. It was said that she had the 'evil eye,' that she was a witch, and various other disagreeable things. When, therefore, the doctor placed my old acquaintance Brown and his wife in charge of the pesthouse, it was not wonderful that many of the poor were afraid of going there, and tried hard to be allowed to remain in their own homes. A Mrs. Fitch, whose husband was smitten with the disease, and was to be sent to the pest-house, begged hard that he should not go. 'He knows, sir, that of Brown that 'ood hang 'im,' she said, and that's sartin he'll never come out alive.' But of course no heed could be paid to this, and Fitch went. In two days he became much worse, and said he should like to see the clergyman before he died. The doctor passed with me regular round, and I despatched Brown for the curate of the parish. Fitch would last another day, we both thought, and, leaving him with Mrs. Brown, went into the next ward. When the clergyman came, Fitch was dead. I went up to study in London after the epidemic had passed away, and forgot Stumpy Brown and Woodbridge until the following facts were narrated to me about seven years afterwards. on our "It appeared that a man of the name of Green was charged at Woodbridge with burglary. This man I knew was an old companion of Brown's, and seemed always to have a sort of very mysterious connection with him. When awaiting his trial, he wrote to Brown that unless he came and swore to an 'alibi' for him, he would let him (Brown) know.' Brown did not come forward, and accordingly when in prison Green turned king's evidence, and implicated old Stumpy in the murder of Farmer Aighton. It was nearly thirty years since the murder occurred, and Brown was now a feeble old man. Whether it was on account of his old age, and the time which had elapsed since the murder, or whether in default of evidence, I cannot say, but Brown, who was tried åt Bury assizes, was convicted of aggravated manslaughter only, and sentenced to penal servitude for the remainder of his days. The ship in which he was to have gone to Botany Bay was one of the last convict transports which left England. It was wrecked in the Channel off Boulogne, and all on board were drowned. Then one of the mysterious murders was explained in the person of my old acquaintance, and expiated. "Mrs. Brown did not long survive her husband. As she lay on her death-bed she said to the doctor, I should like to speak to some one before I go.' The clergyman was sent for, but when he came the old woman raised herself in her bed, and said, 'That's no use in your coming here, that's no good you can do me. It's the magistrate I want.' After this, she relapsed for some time, and with her last energy said, 'I ha' got summut to tell yer afore I die. Stumpy's gone, and so shall I be soon, so that don't matter. You know the officer as was murdered and robbed close by the Martlesome Lion?—I and Stumpy ha' done that. [A pause.] Yer know the cap'ain what was found in a sack -I and Stumpy put 'im in. We drugged 'im first, and then took his money and sewed 'im up. Fitch saw Stumpy put 'im in the river, but he dursen't tell, 'cause Stumpy said he'd do the same for him if he did. When you sent for the clargyman when Fitch was a-dying, Stumpy says to me, says he, "He's a going to blab, you best stop 'im." I knowed what he meant, and so I stuck the pillow on his face, after you were gone. He went off quite easy and naterel-like, and he hadn't long to live anyways. That's all about Fitch. [Another pause.] Stumpy killed owld Aighton 'cause he prosecuted 'im, and that war'n't likely he would stand that. Stumpy's drownded, so yer can't git him, and I ain't fur off dying. I can die more quiet-like, now I have loosed my mind. That's getting that cold now, I feel as if that were a kind o' smothering me. Oh! Lord!' And thus the old woman died. No great publicity was given to Mrs. Brown's confession, and to many the Woodbridge murders are still a mystery." A POETICAL BARBER. AT a time when the English language was being touched into an almost metallic brilliancy under the skilful manipulation of that prince of polishers, Mr. Alexander Pope, there dwelt in the High Street of Edinburgh an obscure bookseller who had just completed and published, in his own quiet way and in his own homely Doric, one of the most perfect pastoral poems ever written: a little dark-faced man, with much quiet humour in his brown eyes, and with a considerable fund of ready wit, which was bestowed alike upon customer and visitor—a man who was beginning to find his way into the most distinguished circles of Edinburgh society, though himself merely the occupant of a dirty and picturesque little bookshop in that dirty, picturesque, and glorious old city-a man who had the most exalted notions of his own consequence as a poet, and of course quite failed to perceive wherein lay his true claims to be considered a poet at all. Such was Allan Ramsay, author of "The Gentle Shepherd." This poem of his has been named the first and finest pastoral in existence; but those who have a wholesome dread of pledging themselves to any too definite opinion may say that, if not the most perfect, it is one of the most pleasing. Allan Ramsay was born in 1686, at the village of Leadhills, in the south of Lanarkshire. In that high and bleak region, where the river Clyde rises under shadow of Tinto hill, are several lead-mines; and the father of the future poet was then manager of such of those mines as belonged to the Earl of Hopetoun. Here young Ramsay spent fifteen years of his life, educating himself in a quite unconscious manner for his coming mission; at the end of which time he was apprenticed by his step-father-for his own father had died several years before-to a periwig-maker in Edinburgh, Here he faithfully fulfilled his apprenticeship; for as yet no visions of literary fame ever disturbed his duties by day or his dreams by night. Certainly, during this time, he must have amassed a considerable fund of information, for the trade of a barber is the most literary of all non-professional pur· suits; and it is probable that Allan acquired more knowledge when assisting to rid men of their beards than he would have done had the finest library in the kingdom been thrown open to him. In due time his apprenticeship ceased. Not despising his calling, as a less sensible man might have done, he began business on his own account, and so far succeeded that in the year 1712 he was enabled to marry one Christian Ross, by all accounts a most pious and worthy woman. Not even his courtship, it seems, had stirred up the latent powers of this literary laggard towards any approach to verse-writing. But now, married and comfortable, with a steadygoing business daily bringing him sufficient bread and "yill," he began to indite small humorous rhymes, partly for his own gratification, chiefly for the amusement of one or two societies of good fellows with whom he now pretty much associated. On the strength of this faculty, he was becoming noted in the literary and fashionable circles of Edinburgh; and they potted him and fêted him as they subsequently treated another Scottish poet; with this difference, however, that Allan Rainsay was so perfectly satisfied with himself and his works that their neglect of him, had such a catastrophe occurred, would not have affected him one whit. In dedicating "The Gentle Shepherd" to "Susanna, Countess of Eglintoune," he claims to rank with Tasso aud with Ovid. Was such a man to become misanthropic because a certain number of ladies and gentlemen forgot to bow to him in Prince's Street? It is said that the good women of Edinburgh were accustomed to send out their children with a penny to purchase "Allan Ramsay's last piece "-for his productions were printed as broad sheets, and. were sold for this modest sum. With such popular suffrage, could any clique of fashionable people wound the honest periwig-maker's self-respect? Allan Ramsay had a comfortable home, a goodtempered wife, a promising son; he had good health, and was not afflicted with bile: wherefore he thanked God, and was content. By-and-by, however, this Scottish Horace resolved to change his professional pursuits by adopting the business of a bookseller, which was accordingly done, and thereafter he was his own publisher. In 1719 he edited, and produced in four volumes, a collection of songs which he styled the "Tea-Table Miscellany," and which at once became popular among the middle and lower classes of Scotland. In 1720 he collected the various miscellaneous pieces of his own writing, which he had already given forth, and reprinted them in a goodly quarto volume, the sale of which brought him the unusually large sum of four hundred guineas. And in 1724 he published two volumes of ancient Scottish poetry, under the title of the "Evergreen," gathering together much of that fugitive poetical literature the love of which has always been a marked feature among the characteristics of the Scotch peasantry. Several of Allan Ramsay's songs, besides directing the current of Burns' thought and forming models for many of his lyrics, are among the most popular songs in Scotland at the present daythe most widely-known amongst them being "Lochaber no More," "Bessy Bell and Mary Gray," ," "The Lass of Patie's Mill," and "The Flower of Yarrow." But, as yet, these were mere indications of the man's ability to do something better. His songs, though sufficiently natural and lyrical to become instantaneously popular, had nevertheless but little sustained poetry in them; while in those emendations which he made upon ancient Scotch poetry he betrayed considerable want of taste, or, to adopt the most charitable view of the case, much carelessness, or even recklessness. Many of his alterations are exceedingly injudicious; and this is the more to be wondered at now that we behold the dramatic propriety and correctness of taste exhibited in "The Gentle Shepherd." This "Scots Pastoral Comedy," as he termed it, was published in 1725, and at once the little bookseller in the High Street found himself a marked man among the notabilities of Edinburgh. It took the city by surprise. People could not believe it. His claim to be the real author was for some time openly challenged, as was that of Goldsmith when the "Deserted Village" appeared, and, most singular of all, as is that of Shakespeare, by some fatuous persons, even until this day. The publication of "The Gentle Shepherd " brought Ramsay into contact with the highest minds of the period. Pope, who was then the presiding genius of English literature, admired the poem; and Ramsay, in return, addressed some verses to the translator of Homer. Gay called in at the little bookselling establishment, and chatted with the proprietor and the wits there assembled. Sir William Scott of Thirlstain celebrated Ramsay in Latin hexameters. The Duke of Hamilton, the Earl of Loudoun, and countless other noblemen and gentlemen who aspired to know something of the fine arts, admitted him to their friendship, and received him at their houses. Allan Ramsay was not a man to be patronised; he had too good an opinion of himself; he was too contented with his lot in the world; and it can hardly be questioned that when he went to this or the other nobleman's house he considered the favour reciprocal and the obligation mutual. This frank jovial little man did not abate one whit of his dignity in any one's presence; and his goodnature, his liberality of opinion, his ready palliation for other people's shortcomings, were something unusual at that time for one in his station, and served to render him a general favourite. Nay, he too aspired to be a patron of certain of the arts; and in his honest straightforward way resolved to declare his opinion by building a playhouse in Edinburgh, the city being as yet destitute thereof. Some years previous he had started the first circulating library in Scotland, and the venture had proved successful. Why should not this venture also? It was a popular want. The whole people of Edinburgh were surely not so strait-laced as had hitherto appeared. Allan Ramsay, doubtless, would himself have superintended the management of this theatre; and, had his scheme proved successful, might have |